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Research Project

Overview

In this project you have been asked as a group to conduct a design probe into the user experience of some of the public transport and associated information systems in Hong Kong.
As a group you will:
Conduct a design probe on:

A ticket purchasing technology.

A high-tech information system

A low-tech information system.

An audio feedback system

You will consider these user experiences as:

An auto-ethnography: Your group using the technology

A participant observation: A member of the public using the same technology

In order to do this, you will be expected to use all of the following design probe tools:

A camera.

An audio recording device

Note pad and sketch pad

An envelope for collecting tickets, information sheets and other ephemera.

You will be expected to carry out your research through out the entire visit to Hong Kong. There will be specific days set aside for carrying out your research. At the end of our visit you will be expected to present your research to each other in a 5 min presentation. You will be expected to include interesting visual materials to help present your work.

Hong Kong Transport

Hong Kong has an efficient and reliable public transport system which moves over 11 million passengers everyday. Over 90% journeys in Hong Kong are on public transport making it the highest level of public transport use in any city in the world.
One of the most important technologies used in Hong Kong is the Octopus Card. Like Transport for London’s Oyster card this card allows contactless payment on a large number of transport systems including trams, buses, trains, and ferry’s and even for food and vending machines.

Design Probes

Design probes or cultural probes are a research method designed to gather interesting cultural information about people’s lives, values and thoughts. Design probes consist of a package of tools such as cameras, sketch pads, notes, templates and a research task which allows the researcher to gather artefacts, ideas, images and sounds relating to a specific topic or context. This project makes up the first part of what would be an extended design research project.
The information gathered would be used to develop design ideas and prototypes. These in turn would be used to gather more information in an iterative process before a final research output is created.